Page 52 of Sins of Arrogance (Syndicate Sins #1)

KARA

"I’m taking you out." The words precede Mick into the bedroom where I am putting away the rest of our clothes in the dresser.

I'm not sure why Mick insisted on bringing my duffel. He packed a month's worth of clothes for me in the matching luggage.

Straightening, I push the drawer shut with my foot. "Like…to dinner?"

"Aye."

My brain stutters. "With me?"

His jaw flexes. "Who else would I be taking out, Kara?"

I give him a sour look he has no trouble interpreting.

"That was not a date. It was business and I'll tell you all about it at dinner."

"You'll tell me about business? At dinner? At a restaurant?" I ask, just to be sure.

"Aye."

He wants to take me on a date after kidnapping me and bringing me to the vacation house in Martha's Vineyard?

We arrived near dawn this morning and I didn’t even argue about going to sleep in the bed we shared on our wedding night. Mick joined me, but he didn't try for sex, so I didn't knee him in the balls.

After all the revelations of the early hours of the morning, I needed to be held and he was the only one around to do it.

At least that's the story I'm telling myself.

We woke around eleven and spent the day with Fitz. Both of us.

Apparently, my husband explained to our son that we are on a family vacation . And Fitz is so excited about spending a week together, there's no way I was going to burst his bubble.

Hence the unpacking.

Trying to ignore the frisson of excitement the thought of a date with Mick – not on our anniversary – causes, I ask, "What about Fitz?"

"He’s having a slumber party with Conor and Rory."

That stops me.

"With your two top lieutenants?"

Mick nods. "They're bribing him with popcorn and a late bedtime. Gobby is invited."

"Your top men are babysitting our son and his cat?" It's not such an outlandish idea.

Fitz adores all three of Mick's lieutenants and calls them uncle. I'm not sure how Mick didn't realize those men are his friends when they're as close as brothers, but they've never watched my son overnight.

Apparently, there are a dozen more men staying on the grounds to watch over us too, as Mick makes his obsessed sociopath bid to save our marriage.

"According to Fitz, Gobby is the best movie buddy. Don’t ask me what show they picked." He says it so seriously, like I might actually quiz him on what animated feature our son talked his honorary uncles into watching.

A laugh slips out before I can stop it. "You’re serious."

"I am."

"You planned a date night?" My voice comes out way softer than I mean it to.

He frowns. "Is it that hard to believe?"

"Mick, we don’t date. I can count the number of times we’ve gone out together on one hand." This past anniversary was the second one he missed.

The other one was the year after Fitz was born. With everything happening then, I barely notice that one.

"You’re exaggerating."

"I’m not. We don’t do date nights. We do dinners with important people where I play my role and you play yours. Required appearances. The only time we eat alone together is breakfast sometimes when Fitz sleeps in."

"You enjoy those mornings," he says like a challenge.

I don’t bother trying to deny it. He'd know me for the liar I would be. "That’s not the point."

"That is exactly the point." He crosses his arms, unmovable.

My heart gives a ridiculous little lurch, and I hate how easy it is for him to undo me with five words and a tight jaw.

I lean back against the long dresser, now filled with mine and Mick's clothes, and cross my arms. "What makes you think I want to go on a date with you now?"

"You said you did."

He's talking about the Dierdre debacle.

All the softness his words engendered disappears. "That was before."

"There will be no divorce, therefore there is no before ," he says, proving he knows exactly what I meant. "There is now and always."

"And you think if you say that, it makes it true?" I demand, making no effort to hide my crankiness.

I'm not the perfect paragon Kara anymore.

His expression says yes but he's smart enough not to say the word out loud.

"Why now? If you wanted to go out with me, you would have said so sometime in the last seven years."

"Dining in restaurants creates a security risk I prefer not to take with you." Suddenly, he's invading my personal space.

How did he get so close?

"What do you mean? We eat out for our anniversary." As well as the events I just mentioned.

His hand settles on my waist, like he needs to touch me. "I prep the locations beforehand."

"In what way?" I ignore the breathiness of my own voice.

"By the time we arrive, there are two full teams of security dedicated to your safety in place. One inside the restaurant, or venue, including the kitchen to oversee the preparation of our food. The other team stays outside, with two snipers in place."

No wonder we don't go out to dinner on a whim. "Isn't that overkill?"

"Nothing that keeps you safe is too much."

"Did you make those preparations for your dinner with Dierdre?" Somehow, my hand is holding his belt and I'm standing even closer to my husband.

Desire flares in his green gaze. "Nah."

"Why not?"

"Because she's not worth the effort."

"But I am?"

"Can you doubt it?" His hand not holding my waist cups my nape under my hair, completely surrounding me with him.

"I wouldn't have asked for the divorce if I didn't."

Understanding dawns. "You don't think I value you?"

"I know you value me, but you don't prioritize me, so that puts low currency on that value." I think, even with his ASPD, he cares about me.

As much as he cares about anyone besides Fitz. But that still doesn't make me important to him.

"Not taking you on dates made you believe this?" he asks, no inflection in his tone.

I have to get used to that. Mick not masking his true nature.

"Abandoning me for work on our wedding night, taking phone calls in the middle of sex—"

"I explained about our wedding night."

"But if you'd gotten the call from my grandfather before you left the bedroom, you would have gone."

Mick nods. "And that bothers you?"

"The fact you would do it at all? No," I spell out very clearly. "The fact you would do it on our wedding night, or miss our anniversary for mob business? Yes."

"Because our anniversary is the only time I take you out to dinner, just the two of us."

"That, and it's our anniversary Mick. If you don't want to celebrate our marriage, how am I supposed to believe it, or I am important to you?"

"You need to make me a list of the dates that are important to you."

"They're not some big secret. Our anniversary. My birthday—"

"You want me to spend time alone with you on your birthday?" he interrupts me to ask again.

It's on the tip of my tongue to say, duh , but I don't. Maybe what is obvious to me, and other people isn't to my sociopath. And maybe that list he wants is his way of prioritizing my feelings.

I simply nod and say, "Yes." Then a thought comes to me. "It would be just as special if that time included Fitz."

"But no one else."

"No one else."

"Not even Fiona or Maeve?" he checks.

"Not even them. Our time together as a nuclear family is at a premium. You making it happen for my birthday would feel special."

"Noted."

I can't believe he's got me talking like we have a future already, but this whole Mick showing me who he really is and listening to my every word? It's heady stuff.

He pulls something out of his trousers pocket. A flat jeweler's box. "I know jewelry is just part of the armor you wear, but this made me think of you."

"You have to step back so I can open it."

He does with clear reluctance.

I flip the top up on the box and gasp. It's a garnet cut in the shape of a heart and wrapped in yellow gold wire, creating a tree of life in the center. It's set in an oval setting decorated with tiny foliage accented with small round brilliant cut emeralds and diamonds.

Like my birthday gift, this necklace feels special. As if it was made just for me.

There are earrings made with the same yellow gold and gemstones but simple and elegant to compliment the pendant.

"It's beautiful." I touch it reverently. "I can't believe you just saw something like this and it made you think of me."

"I saw a heart shaped stone wrapped in the tree of life and told the jeweler I wanted something like it, but befitting my queen."

"Garnets symbolize passionate love and devotion," I tell him.

So do emeralds. Diamonds symbolize enduring love, commitment and strength.

"I know."

"Are you trying to tell me something?" I ask, my heart beating wildly in my chest.

"There is no stone that is associated with addiction, but enduring devotion is close. You are my pulse, my treasure."

He says it in English and I feel like that’s purposeful. He wants me to know he's not just using an endearment. But that the words carry a deeper significance for him.

"And the love?"

He brushes my hair back from my face and behind my ear. Touching me again. Because he needs to? "I don’t feel emotion."

"That’s not true. You love Fitz and while you may not love me you react to me with emotion. Pleasure. Anger. Frustration. Happiness."

"The anger and frustration are new," he says with one of his genuine smiles.

The smiles he reserves for me and Fitz indicated a level of joy that Mick shows with no one else.

Addiction .

I wonder. Is what Mick calls addiction what I might call love?

"If you're really intent on staying married, you need to know I'm done being the obedient perfect mob princess," I warn him.

"Is that how you see yourself?"

"Yes." I lick my lips and watch his gaze fixate on them. "Isn't that how you see me?"

He shakes his head a little, like he's clearing it, and our eyes meet. "No."

"How do you see me?"

"Stubborn. Rebellious."

I laugh out loud until I realize he's serious. "How do you figure that?"

"Would you have ever let me use the cuffs again if I didn't start turning off my phone when I had you bound?" he asks in return.

"No."

"Stubborn."

"Self-protection."

"Exactly. When something is important to you, you don't back down about it. Like Fitz getting therapy after Róise's kidnapping."

"It's a good thing he didn't see you carting me from the mansion bound wrist and ankle." My words sound a lot more amused than angry.

Gah.

He's getting to me.

Mick shrugs. "There's a reason I sent him ahead in the helicopter."

"You could have just not kidnapped me," I suggest.

"Nah. It was necessary."

Not willing to argue that designation with him, I ask, "How do you think I'm rebellious?"

"You kept seeing a therapist after you came home from The Marlowe Center even though you knew your father didn't want you to."

"You called him my father."

Mick's brow furrows. "Aye."

"You usually call him my da."

"Not now that I understand why you don't."

Obsession. Devotion. Loyalty. I might be deceiving myself, but Mick's definition of his feelings for me are sounding more and more like love.

"One rebellion does not a rebel make."

Mick laughs and the genuine humor in the sound makes me smile too.

"You are going to college secretly, you hacked our security feeds so you and your cousin could sneak off the property, you taught our son to read despite his teacher telling you not to."

"Expecting me to hold my son's natural development back for her convenience was ridiculous. Besides the deed had already been done."

"You read the letter she sent to parents about what she expected our son to be proficient at before coming into kindergarten, just like I did."

"His first-grade teacher is much more focused on challenging his students," I say with approval.

"You like him."

"I do." I roll my eyes at the danger vibes now emanating off my husband. "Not like that. Rein it in psycho boy. The only man I like in that way is you."

"I don't want you to like other men at all."

"Not going to happen. But you never have to worry about me flirting with other men, or allowing them to try to undermine our marriage."

Mick winces. "I miscalculated the damage Dierdre could do because I knew I wasn't interested in her."

"Would you make the same choices again?" I ask, because this really matters.

"Not a chance in hell, even if my men call me the devil."

"That's good to know." Maybe my husband can learn to be the man I need him to be in our relationship. "So, you think I'm a stubborn rebel?"

"I think you've been selective about your intransigence and rebellions, but that is going to change."

"It's almost like you know me," I tease, feeling a little overwhelmed by that truth.

"Better than anyone else. But understanding you is something else entirely," he admits.

But he wants to.

And that counts for a lot.

"What should I wear for this date?"